The Baldur's Gate Website announces that preloads of Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition are now being offered in advance of next week's release of the updated role-playing game. The news is accompanied by some screenshots and this new trailer. Here's word:

Overhaul Games is excited to announce that pre-loading for Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition has begun ahead of final release on November 28th, 2012. Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition for PC is available exclusively through Beamdog, and can be purchased here.

If you've already purchased Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition, you can either pre-load it through the Beamdog client, which can be found here, or through the Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition Installer which can be downloaded here.

Kajetan wrote on Nov 24, 2012, 05:35:For that they have to make assets new from scratch. The original assets are unfortunatly lost, so is the source code. All they could do is prgramming around the base game, adding and modifying stuff like the modder scene.

Can you quote your sources? I doubt the source code is lost, or they couldn't make a native ARM port for tablets. And I doubt they are using emulation for performance reasons.

I am going to pick this up as I haven't played it in forever and lost my cd version no longer worked. It will be a cleaner/hassle free method. Plus I get the extra adventures and characters to change things up a bit plus the expansion. I am a much bigger BG 2 fan and was actually just going to get the GOG version of it with expansion but then I saw this for BG 1 and they are bringing out a BG2 version summer of next year so I will wait. Was thinking of getting Ipad version but thought it might be odd to play that way.

FWIW on this side of the keyboard, steam will have zero reason if I buy it or not. User reviews will be the dominating reason why I will or won't. I haven't boxed myself in yet, not sure why I have to, getting me the game and starting it, is simple simon no matter the platform in doing so.

Dev wrote on Nov 24, 2012, 07:27:Also, keep in mind WHY they are doing remakes of BG and MDK. Its to get marketshare for beamdog.

While there may be some truth to that for the Windows version, I don't think it is the full picture. Porting to IOS is not minimal effort, nor is it promoting Beamdog. The same goes for Andriod. And while there was a Macintosh version of Bauldur's Gate... it was for Power PC Macs using OS 9 (BG on Mac was released 1 year before OSX)... so I'm pretty sure they'd have to port it to x86 Unix to get on the Mac App Store, which again doesn't promote Beamdog. I dont think Apple accepts apps that require Rosetta Emulation anymore because it is not licensed for Lion nor Mountain Lion (and onward), hence requiring a full port.

Granted... the Mac version will probably be their smallest Audience... But the IOS and Andriod versions will probably outsell the PC versions... mainly because it will be one of the few AAA games (as we PC Gamers know them) available for the tablet platform.

This comment was edited on Nov 24, 2012, 10:38.

"Did you even read cutters post or are you just suffering from rectal cranial inversion." - RedEye9

entr0py wrote on Nov 24, 2012, 01:19:I'm disappointed they did nothing to improve the game visually. I thought at least they would re-render the background, and hopefully add more frames to the pre-rendered animations.

For that they have to make assets new from scratch. The original assets are unfortunatly lost, so is the source code. All they could do is prgramming around the base game, adding and modifying stuff like the modder scene.

If you want Baldurs Gate with revamped graphics (like the screenshots form Project Eternity) you have to make a NEW game.

Also, keep in mind WHY they are doing remakes of BG and MDK. Its to get marketshare for beamdog. They picked up the IP from interplay for a song. They don't really have a desire or a need to do a bunch of extra work on the game beyond the minimum. Fans of the original game will mostly buy it regardless. And modern consolers who only play FPS won't like or play it regardless of how much extra stuff they put into it.

And of course they want to cash in on the apps market for smartphones/tablets. Since that requires a higher resolution than the original game, thats a big part of why they redid the menus/GUI to work on them. Since beamdog is only for PC, thats also why the $10 doesn't include everything, and they charge extra for DLC. Those types of users aren't becoming part of beamdog marketshare so they are trying to make up for that.

Their motivations and reasons are simple to deduce once you realize that the #1 motivation for it on PC is to get market share for beamdog. Its NOT to get all the extra sales they would have gotten had they put it on steam.

entr0py wrote on Nov 24, 2012, 01:19:I'm disappointed they did nothing to improve the game visually. I thought at least they would re-render the background, and hopefully add more frames to the pre-rendered animations.

For that they have to make assets new from scratch. The original assets are unfortunatly lost, so is the source code. All they could do is prgramming around the base game, adding and modifying stuff like the modder scene.

If you want Baldurs Gate with revamped graphics (like the screenshots form Project Eternity) you have to make a NEW game.

WaltC wrote on Nov 23, 2012, 16:12:This is probably a word to the wise, and I don't think even applies to the original BG1, anyway...but just in case you aren't aware of it--as I wasn't initially--when Amazon game descriptions say "Win7 compatible" in the description, what they are usually always talking about with much older games is "Win 7 x86" compatible, because these are 16-bit Windows games that will run fine on Win7 x86 but *won't run at all--won't even install* on Win7 x64 systems.

A pure 16 bit installer won't run on a 64 bit OS because the OS has no clue what the hell it is. However, I've been able to get past those issues several times just by running the installer in XP Compatibility mode. Have you tried that?

Creston

I don't know if the 4 in 1 box set has different executable for installation, but I personally had zero issues installing BG1/2/TOB on windows 7 ultimate 64bit. The only requirement was that you install it outside of your program files directory, because it has problems writing to it because of new security.

I'm disappointed they did nothing to improve the game visually. I thought at least they would re-render the background, and hopefully add more frames to the pre-rendered animations. Seems the biggest "improvement" is that you can dab at it on a tablet. Like some kind of finger painting simpleton.

After reading this on their Android page I'm not so sure you get the whole EE game for $9.99. Seems you will be paying more after all...

Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition for Android Tablets contains the following enhancements:•New Adventure: The Black Pits•New Character: Dorn Il-Khan as an in-app purchase•New Character: Neera the Wild Mage as an in-app purchase•New Character: Rasaad yn Bashir•New Player Voice sets as an in-app purchase•New Player Portraits as an in-app purchase•Multiplayer support between all platforms

edit: At least with the PC version you get it all for $20... no other in-app purchases required.

Sad that they won't let you buy the game and then let you play it on what-ever OS you care to. If that were the case I would be downloading it now.

This is exactly what they did with MDK2 HD stuff, they kept it exclusive for like a year on beamdog to try and get market share. I would have thought they learned the difference with MDK 2 HD between the tiny bit of sales they get by doing that and the massive sales that steam can deliver. They need to give up on their download service and go full time on doing remakes and putting on steam.

They likely picked up the remake rights from interplay for next to nothing to try and push their service. But there's nothing I'm interested in about their service. It doesn't have as good of sales, it doesn't have DRM free (like GoG), etc. And despite their page saying they won't take the software away from you, they have a section similar to other companies that says they CAN indeed terminate your account.

WaltC wrote on Nov 23, 2012, 16:12:This is probably a word to the wise, and I don't think even applies to the original BG1, anyway...but just in case you aren't aware of it--as I wasn't initially--when Amazon game descriptions say "Win7 compatible" in the description, what they are usually always talking about with much older games is "Win 7 x86" compatible, because these are 16-bit Windows games that will run fine on Win7 x86 but *won't run at all--won't even install* on Win7 x64 systems.

A pure 16 bit installer won't run on a 64 bit OS because the OS has no clue what the hell it is. However, I've been able to get past those issues several times just by running the installer in XP Compatibility mode. Have you tried that?